ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Beth Macy
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Roanokers are fascinated by people who choose - on purpose - to live among them.
Meet someone new at a party, and it's always the first thing they ask: How did you get here?
Followed by the more pointed question: WHY?
I heard recently of a woman who was desperate to leave the rat race of Boston but wasn't sure where she wanted to move. She swung a pendulum over a map of the United States and ended up in the Star City a few months ago - at the age of 69.
Two of my college friends in Ohio did the same thing, only they threw darts. Three years after we'd all high-tailed it out of the Midwest, I ran into them at a party - in Elliston, of all places. Seven years later, we're all still here.
What makes some places feel immediately like home and others like layover stops?
Linda Scank says it's the friends that hooked her family to the area. Five years ago, she was driving her parents around the retirement hotspots of North Carolina, when they wandered into Virginia on a whim. A few months later, her parents were selling their 29-acre farm in upstate New York to move to the small town of ... Rocky Mount.
Scank, a longtime resident of Minneapolis, wasn't far behind. ``I've never been somewhere where it's been so easy to get to know people. The day after my parents moved into their house in Rocky Mount, the lady across the street brought us a homemade cake - and apologized for not having it there the first day.
``It was like, `Who are you? Why are you so nice?''' recalls Scank, who lives in Floyd County and works in Roanoke. ``People are so open and friendly here, but the best part of it is, it's real.''
I'm a restless person at heart, a lover of change. Every summer, I fantasize about moving to wherever we go on vacation.
Last year it was Colorado: We could run a guest ranch. There would be skiing in the winter, horses in the summer. (Insert picture of me running through a wildflower meadow here!) My husband thought I was nuts.
The year before, it was the beach. Virginia Beach, even. All because my son, a colicky infant at the time, had been immediately lulled by the waves and didn't cry once. I took it as a sign we should move. (Insert rare sound of a snoozing baby here.) Again, my husband thought I was nuts.
This year, we took a two-parter. The first week we spent with some friends at their cabin in the Endless Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania. (Visualize cold beers, swimming from a dock, floating aimlessly on innertubes.)
The second week we went to Portland, Maine, home of lobster, cool shops, 10-minute walks through woods to the beach. This is where my sister-in-law moved her family last year, chucking a six-figure income and the comfy suburbs of Indianapolis - after going there, on a whim, for a long weekend. And I thought I was restless.
This time I went prepared to fall in love. I even took my resume.
My husband knew for a fact I was nuts. A veteran Roanoker now for 11 years, he played along with my annual charade: We could run a bed-and-breakfast by the coast! I could write a novel! (Insert lobster for supper every night here.)
But this year, something else happened. I could picture living in Maine, but I couldn't picture saying goodbye to Roanoke, to our great friends and neighbors, to jobs we both like, not even to our rickety, too-small house.
I'm still intrigued by people who choose to move to Roanoke, but the question that fascinates me even more is: When and how did you come to know you were going to stay?
I'm not positive I have, yet. But five minutes after we arrived home last week, I found myself in the garden, plucking wiregrass and handfuls of homegrown tomatoes, positively giddy to be digging again in my very own dirt.
Meanwhile, my road-weary 2-year-old was inside going from room to room, touching everything he could get his hands on, saying, ``This is my couch, this is my table, this is my bathtub ... ''
My husband didn't say a word as he emptied our car of all its baggage and vacation trinkets, walking quietly - but confidently - from the car to home.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB